Since 2017, the Graduate and Post-Doctoral Education Across the Disciplines SIG #168 has had more than 150 SIG members from Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Indonesia, New Zealand, Spain, United Arab Emirates, the UK, and the USA.
Dr. Deniece Dortch is an assistant professor of higher education administration at The George Washington University. Dr. Dortch's research and teaching grapples with systemic oppression across multiple axes. She uses critical phenomenological approaches to understanding how African American undergraduate and graduate students experience and respond to race and racism at predominantly white institutions of higher education. Prior to joining the faculty at George Washington University, Dr. Dortch was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Utah where she created the African American Doctoral Scholars Initiative, a comprehensive mentoring program focused on graduate student socialization into the academy. She earned her Ph.D. in Education Leadership & Policy Analysis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an Ed.M. in Higher & Postsecondary Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and a M.A. in Intercultural Service, Leadership & Management from the School for International Training in Vermont and a B.A. in Spanish from Eastern Michigan University. Dr. Dortch is a returned United States Peace Corps Volunteer who served in both Morocco and Jamaica.
Dr. Stephanie Lezotte has served as Assistant Dean of Rowan’s School of Graduate Studies since 2021. Her published works highlight organizational structures and cultures that inhibit postsecondary access and success as well as the examination of college outcomes. Her research has been published in: Journal for Diversity in Higher Education, Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Improving Schools, School Science and Mathematics, and Journal for Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice. She earned her B.A. in English from Lebanon Valley College, an M.A. in English from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and her Ph.D. from Rowan University. Dr. Lezotte has been teaching in postsecondary institutions since 2006 and most recently has taught courses in Rowan’s M.A. in Higher Education Administration, Ph.D., and Ed.D. programs, including higher education administration, strategic planning and budgeting, research methods, literature reviews, and thesis seminar. She is Rowan’s coordinator for the National Name Exchange and the National GEM Consortium, programs that aim to increase underrepresented students’ participation in graduate studies.
Dr. Tamara Bertrand Jones is a Professor of Education Policy and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She uses qualitative methods and Black feminist theories to explore how culturally responsive environments impact the experiences of historically underrepresented populations, with a focus on Black women in academia. Her research also covers culturally responsive evaluation, higher education leadership, and faculty development. Dr. Bertrand Jones co-founded Sisters of the Academy Institute and co-developed the Research BootCamp© to support early-career scholars. She has secured over $9 million in funding for projects supporting diverse populations in higher education. Her work has been funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and others. She has co-authored several books, including Pathways to Higher Education for African American Women and Advancing Inclusive Excellence in Higher Education. Previously, Dr. Bertrand Jones was an associate professor at Florida State University, where she held several leadership roles. She has received numerous awards for her teaching and mentoring, including the Association for the Study of Higher Education Medal of Service Award. Dr. Bertrand Jones holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and both a master’s and Ph.D. from Florida State University in higher education and research methods.
Dr. Linda DeAngelo is an Associate Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Foundations, Organizations, and Policy at the University of Pittsburgh. At Pitt, she also holds a secondary faculty appointment within the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences where she is Director of Graduate Studies. Dr. DeAngelo studies social stratification, investigating how social inequities are produced, maintained, and interrupted. Currently, her scholarship focuses on access to and engagement in faculty mentorship, the pathway into and through graduate education and the professoriate, and the gendered and raced experiences of students and faculty in engineering. She and her team of graduate students and post-doctoral scholars engage in their scholarship through HEAL (Higher ed Equity Advancement Lab), the lab they established. Prior to entering the professoriate, Dr. DeAngelo was Assistant Director for Research at the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. She also earned her PhD and MA at UCLA in Higher Education and Organizational Change and her BA there in American Literature and Culture. Dr. DeAngelo was part of the initial group that developed this SIG and served as its inaugural secretary.
Dr. Annie M. Wofford (she/her/hers) is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and a Senior Research Associate with the Center for Postsecondary Success at Florida State University. Broadly, her research focuses on understanding and disrupting the structural disparities that typify students’ pathways to and through graduate education, with a specific focus on how to create more equitable structures of support (e.g., mentoring networks) in STEMM fields. Dr. Wofford’s research has been supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Inclusive Graduate Education Network, and she has published independent and collaborative research in many well-regarded journals (e.g., The Journal of Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education). She also serves on the Editorial Board for Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education and the Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education. Dr. Wofford earned a Ph.D. in Higher Education and Organizational Change at the University of California, Los Angeles and completed a postdoctoral scholar position at Northern Arizona University. She continues to draw on knowledge and expertise from her bachelor’s degree (B.S.E. in Social Studies Education, University of Central Missouri), master’s degree (M.A. Higher Education Administration, University of Missouri-Kansas City), and years of scholar-practitioner experience in medical school graduate admissions to inform her research and engagement.
Pacey Ham Mitchell is a PhD Candidate in the Higher Education Studies & Leadership (HESL) program at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Her research examines how doctoral students are socialized to academic life and what it means to be a good academic citizen across various disciplines and fields. Thus, she is interested in topics like doctoral student collegiality, faculty and peer mentorship, and discipline and field inculcation. She has also served as a research assistant supporting studies on collegiate food insecurity and the transition to the sophomore year, STEM students’ utilization of and benefits from their funds of knowledge, and an NSF-funded project focused on reexamining risk and success for low-income engineering and computer science students. She has been published in the Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory, and Practice and has presented her work at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) annual meetings. Prior to starting the HESL program, Pacey earned an MSEd in Higher Education and Student Affairs from Baylor University, a BA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing and Poetry from the University of Houston, and has worked in university admissions, engineering, and computer science, and spiritual life. In her free time, Pacey enjoys reading for fun, cooking, and spending time with her family.
Zhongxin Zheng, known by her preferred name "Gogo," is a second-year doctoral student at George Washington University, specializing in Curriculum and Instruction. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto, double-majoring in Statistics and Economics. Following her undergraduate studies, Gogo pursued her passion for education and completed a Master’s degree in Creative and Innovative Education at Johns Hopkins University. Her research interests focus on STEAM education, alternative pedagogy, arts integration, project-based learning, and experiential learning. She is particularly interested in the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) in STEAM education. In addition to her studies, Gogo works as a research assistant at George Washington University. Gogo enjoys practicing Chinese calligraphy and playing tennis and golf in leisure time. She is also a talented photographer, having been recognized with an award at the Pingyao International Photography Exhibition.
Committees Outstanding Publication Committee for 2023 Annual Meeting
Outstanding Dissertation Committee for 2023 Annual Meeting
Graduate and Post-Doctoral Education Across the Disciplines
The new name of this Special Interest Group (“SIG”) is Graduate and Post Doctoral Education Across the Disciplines (hereafter, the “SIG”). Read More
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